Fulham head coach Marco Silva is set to rotate his squad for the visit of Norwich City in the League Cup tomorrow night as he believes the players who made a strong impression in the previous round against Spurs deserve the opportunity to play again.

Silva made seven changes for the penalty shoot-out success against Ange Postecoglou’s side and told FFCTV that he is preparing a similar level of rotation for this fixture:

“The competitiveness between the players is really tough. We made seven changes in the last Cup match and we are going to do the same, definitely. Players that did well in the last game, they deserve to keep playing. It is not because we need to rest players – some players they deserve it and tomorrow is a good opportunity for some to show they deserve to start games.”

The Fulham boss reiterated that he wants to make progress in the cup competitions – even if the Premier League must take priority.

“With what we did in the last Carabao Cup match at home [winning on penalties against Tottenham Hotspur], we did so, so well and the players deserve all the credit for what we did against Tottenham – a team that have started so, so well this season. We did really, really well. We deserved to go through in the competition and, of course, I have to see similarities in tomorrow’s match. I know that it is against a Championship team but we have to be really humble and understand that, even if the last few results for Norwich weren’t the best, we have to look at the whole picture and respect the quality that they have for us to be able to win the football match. It is our mission to have a good Carabao Cup run and tomorrow is another opportunity to prove our quality again.

The last defeat [for Norwich at Plymouth on Saturday] was a heavy one and it is a difficult one to take for a team that is fighting to get out of the Championship. We know as football people that they will want to show a reaction and there is no better opportunity to show a reaction against a Premier League club in the Cup. The last few results were not the best but they started well this season. They like to play, they play well, they have good passes into certain areas that we have analysed well and they are going to demand organisation, aggressiveness on and off the ball and we have to put our quality on the pitch to show that we deserve to be in the next round.”

Silva confirmed that, although Sasa Lukic has returned to full training at Motspur Park in the last few days, the clash with the Canaries comes too soon for the Serbian midfielder.

It is nice to see Sasa Lukic working with the team in the last few days. He is not ready yet, it is too soon for him to be involved in the squad [tomorrow] but he is going to be involved in the next one against Chelsea. Tosin is still out and Adama [Traore] is going to be out as well.